


Chiaroscuro

by Mad_Maudlin



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Abortion, Canonical Character Death, Community: halfamoon, Crime, Drugs, Family, Gen, Mental Illness, New Orleans, Prostitution, Sexual Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-08
Updated: 2010-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-07 03:14:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/60833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Maudlin/pseuds/Mad_Maudlin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They'd like to see through me,<br/>but nothing is more opaque<br/>than absolute transparency.</i> <br/>--Margaret Atwood, <a href="http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/helen-of-troy-does-countertop-dancing/">Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Chiaroscuro

When Clara Griffin was six years old, they ended up in another shelter, another place where the sheets smelled like feet and the mattresses were coated in plastic and old ladies who didn't brush their hair talked to people who weren't even there. Momma had fought with Jimmy again, or maybe it was D'Marco, or Ti-Paul—she never remembered for long. Just that Momma always fought with them, and then cried about it, and screamed about how men couldn't be trusted and Clara was the only thing she had. This shelter was women-only, and thus trustworthy, and while Mom was curled up crying on the bottom bunk Clara climbed up top and prayed to God to let her disappear.

And, coiled under a sheet in the dark, she did. It took them three hours to find her.

+

Twelve years old, and Clara couldn't control it, no matter how her mother screamed. _You can't let them see!_ she'd shriek, holding Clara's invisible arm hard enough to bruise. _No one can know! It has to be a secret! If the Sanctuary finds us--!_

If they were found: because there was something wrong, something monstrous, a taint in their blood that went back to Clara's mysterious grandfather. Something that meant her grandmother was never spoken of. Something that meant they had to stay on the move, new schools and new houses or apartments or trailers, new jobs, or sometimes no jobs, because people couldn't be trusted and they were better safe than sorry. Because if the Sanctuary found them, they'd take them away.

Only the thing was, when she came home from school to find more collection notices on the table and no food in the fridge, Clara didn't think it would be so bad if they did.

+

Sweet sixteen, and she turned out to be remarkably bad at turning tricks—she knew this truck stop where girls in her class tried it, but the men all smelled like Jimmy and when things got intense she got scared and started to fade. That nearly got her killed, once, a driver high on Red Bull and No-Doze taking pot shots with a pistol while she ran and prayed—prayed even though she hadn't set foot in a church in years. That night her mother wouldn't let her in the house, screaming and crying and swearing at her grandfather's ghost, and by morning Clara had decided she hadn't liked Baton Rouge that much anyway.

Hell of a lot easier to shoplift, pick pockets, find a crowd so crushed that nobody noticed an empty sleeve. Mardi Gras in New Orleans was a buffet line, and she spent a week high at a friend's house afterwards, but six weeks after that she was in a Planned Parenthood in Mississippi with a fake ID, willing herself not to fade while the doctor explained about bleeding and abdominal cramps. She knew the road that lead down and wanted no part of it.

+

Clothes were the problem: Clara couldn't disappear completely unless she was naked. When all her friends were getting tramp stamps and Chinese symbols on their boobs, Clara pictured a tattoo floating in space and passed it by—just in case. But what kind of a thief goes around bare-assed naked? How was she supposed to get away? What if somebody saw? If she didn't have clothes to hold her shape, how could she know she was still there?

+

She was twenty years old and waitressing at a tourist trap on Canal Street, living with a yatty guy who didn't give a shit if she sat up half the night smoking and thought all the cash she brought home was just tips. Her mom was forty thousand dollars in debt and living in a trailer with a sawed-off shotgun for company, convinced that Granddad came and moved her things while she slept. It seemed like as good a time as any to disappear.

So one hot night Clara put on flip-flops and the shortest skirt she owned, a halter top, a thong, no bra. "Going out somewhere without me?" the guy asked, watching Spike TV on mute while he tuned his guitar.

"Be back in a minute," she told him.

She hid the clothes in a trash can, wadded up real small in a Walgreen's bag, and walked into a little restaurant in the French Quarter—upscale, kind of quiet, with thirty dollar entrees and a wine cellar. People looked right by her, looked through her, while she walked around naked and stuck her finger in their drinks, blew on their hair, made faces. She walked between tables and did scandalous things while they looked right through the empty air. She followed a waitress into the back where the register lived, and it was easy as breathing to hit the NO SALE button and help herself to the till, to stuff a roll of twenties into her fist and another in her mouth so they wouldn't look like they were floating in air.

Easy as breathing to stand in the middle of that restaurant, naked as the day she was born, as if she wasn't there. And maybe she wasn't. She was naked and helpless and nobody knew she was there, and if there was nothing to hold her shape then maybe she wasn't there at all—maybe, finally, she'd faded so far that she'd just faded away.

A waitress bumped her arm, hard; a tray of drinks went flying; the moment was over. Clara went running back into the alley, and didn't stop to find out if she'd flickered, if she'd been seen. She threw her clothes on as fast as she could, ran back home and walked in circles around the block until she stopped shaking, until she was sure nobody was following her. Naked girls randomly appearing in restaurants, right, that was more Vegas than New Orleans, what had she been thinking? What if she'd been caught? What if they'd grabbed her there, naked and helpless? She'd have been arrested, she'd have been caught, the mysterious people he mother feared might even have come to take her away...

The yatty guy saw her coming in with her skirt on backwards and a wad of damp cash and drew the obvious conclusions. "You gonna cut me in on that?" he asked her.

"Fuck you," Clara said, and lit a cigarette, and called her mom.

+

She sort of knew there were others, even if she didn't know the word _Abnormal._ She knew some of those ladies in the shelters, the ones who didn't comb their hair, could talk to pigeons and tell the future; she knew some of the old men in dirty coats could fold themselves flat. Her mom told her about the Sanctuary, the people who'd want to take them away, old enemies of her granddad or something. She had never seen her mom fade, though, not even when people like Jimmy and Ti-Paul got mean with her, until just before the end—sitting in a gymnasium somewhere in Texas while the trailer floated away, they'd both nearly faded away completely.

(Mom had faded away, in a sense—she'd filed a death certificate and told Clara they were free, even though the cancer was already brewing. Clara had moved back to Baton Rouge with her and picked pockets for her medication right up to the end, and had the consolation that at least a grave was an address that was never gonna change.)

Clara kept her distance from other Abnormals, from most people. Easier when people didn't ask questions about why she went out dressed like she did, what she was doing skulking around in the dark. She robbed stores and picked pockets, always in the dark—it was easier than doing it naked, safer, because she might get bumped or stepped on or flicker in and out if she lost her concentration, but in the dark there were lots of excuses for what you didn't see. It got her through the days, got her mom a Christian burial and kept Clara in cigarettes and coffee from week to week.

Until, you know, Will Zimmerman. Helen Magnus. That.

+

"Don't drop my clothes."

She faded and walked into sunlight, onto the treacherous floor. It was like she was made of air itself, like none of it was real—until her nerves wavered and a shadow fell, anchoring her to the earth, into darkness. She staggered away from the gaping wound in the ground and decided old Granddad must've hung around with some real nutjobs.

The floor trembled. "I can't--"

"You can do this," Will called, even though this Indiana Jones shit seemed to freak him out just as badly, even though he was in his underwear, even though along among them all he didn't have any superpowers. Even though they could all die here just the same. "Just focus!"

She walked through light, like her feet weren't even touching the shuddering floor, and nobody could see her skin. Not until she was back out the other side, dragging Will away from the falling rocks, flickering as she ran. For a moment she slumped against a wall and breathed, in and out, the hot gold of the key hard in her hand; it wasn't until Will coughed and offered her a wad of clothes that she realized he could see every inch of her. And that she didn't mind.

+

They even tried to help her out. "In theory, you ought to be able to make your clothes invisible, too," Will had said. "I mean, if your hair and make-up disappear too..."

"You think I haven't been trying?" she asked him.

"That's not what I said," Will said. "I'm just saying, in theory--"

"Will." She'd climbed into his lap then, and he'd touched her thighs, lightly, like he was waiting for permission. She liked that. "There's only one time of day when I actually want to get naked, and running through the Temple of Doom isn't it. If I could do my thing with my clothes on, believe me, I'd have figured it out by now."

"Maybe it has to be a special fabric," he'd mused out loud. "Maybe Henry can--"

But Foss and Magnus and Tesla and Druitt had their own private problems. Well, Will did, too, but somehow he made time for her problems along the way, and she loved him a little for it. There was still the end of the world thing at work, but in the dark of her room they could let that fade away for a while.

+

There was no place for her at this Sanctuary, though, that was clear—not right now, anyway, not with an open wound named Ashley among them. So when she overheard Dr. Magnus talking about a staffing shortage in London, she said, "I'll go."

Magnus looked up like she hadn't noticed Clara was there, though Clara was dressed and visible at the time. "To London?"

"Sure," she said. "If I'm welcome."

Helen Magnus had old, old eyes, even if her face hadn't changed since 1886, like they said. "You want to work for the Sanctuary?"

Clara leaned against the doorway. "Why not? Great benefits package, see the world, fight bad guys...no more naked time than I had when I was a stripper, and a better pay rate."

("You were a stripper?" Will had asked, when she'd tried the joke on him.

"Not for long," she said. "Guy got handsy and I had to break his front teeth." She'd faded and run for it, a spangled g-string floating in space, and never even gone back for her last check.)

Magnus wasn't shocked, or not as shocked as Clara had thought she might be; sure, she seemed like some kind of uptight old English lady, like the grandma from the _Princess Diaries_ or something, but maybe when you'd been around so long you stopped being surprised. "It's dangerous work," she said. "And it requires a high level of dedication. It's not something to be entered into lightly, Clara."

"I know that," she said. "I do. And I'm totally ready for it. This place is...nice."

"Two weeks and the best you can come up with is _nice?"_

Clara sighed, and sat down. She fought down the urge to fade under Magnus' pale stare. "Dr. Magnus, I know I'm not a...great person. I'm not my grandfather. I never even met the guy. But you...here...this place..."

"Is nice?" she asked, dryly, but not mean-like.

"It's got a point," Clara said. "I could have a job that has a point to it, you know? Not just paying the bills and having enough left over for some fun. Not just making the money so you won't get caught short again. It's...nice. It would be nice to have a point like that."

By the weekend, she was on a plane to London.

+

"I can detect the electrical field that filters the photons," Declan told her, when they did grab lab time—meaning, when he wasn't looking for Ashley or trying to do his job and also Watson's. "It's actually pretty cool."

"Yeah, awesome," Clara said. "Can you make me a spidey suit?"

He shrugged. "Depends. Theoretically, I can synthesize a polymer that'll react the same way as your skin, but I can't guarantee it'll be wearable. And right now, we're so busy with the Lazarus vaccine I don't have the time--"

"Hey, whatever works for you," Clara said. "I'm in no hurry."

+

She walked around London doing stupid touristy things with some of the other staff, buying Union flag t-shirts and riding the London Eye. Oh, and making contacts among the UK's Abnormals, introducing herself, going along on field visits to make sure everybody knew about the Lazarus virus and its treatment. And talking to Will, first over Skype and then the Sanctuary network's intranet. Some of their use of that intranet probably violated their employee contracts, but it got them through the weekends.

The Sanctuary there had a special room for photosensitive Abnormals, tricked out with all kinds of lights and mirrors, and Clara spent time there every day, with the door locked and a bikini on. She faded herself away and walked around, took off the bikini, did handstands and cartwheels and held herself perfectly still. The light went through her, shining past every inch of skin. No one could see her or touch her there and for the first time, that made her feel safe.

+

Evacuating the London Sanctuary was a logistical nightmare, because every resident needed a safe house suited to their special needs and some of them couldn't be put together in close quarters and some could only be moved by night, "and the wolf will eat my goat," somebody said, which made a couple of people titter but Declan groan.

And in the middle of working out the lists and sites, Clara told him, "I want to stay and fight."

He blinked at her. "Clara, you've seen what these people are capable of."

"Hello? Invisi-girl?" She flickered on purpose. "They can't hurt me if they can't find me."

"There's been suggestions from the other Sanctuaries that they might be telepathic," Declan said quietly. "You'll be safer at one of the satellite facilities."

Clara raised her chin. "You don't know much about Southern women, do you, honey?"

"Not that South, no," he'd sighed. "But I suppose I'll be learning, won't I?"

+

She dragged Will away before the fight, because she wasn't stupid—she could get hurt, or he could, and he was probably the first really decent guy she'd ever been with and he held her clothes when she faded. She dragged him into a guest room and teased him hard with invisible kisses, but when it came down to fucking she unfaded in the time it took him to shove down his jeans, and climbed in his lap again. He still touched her lightly, even though by now he knew he had permission, and he didn't remind her of anyone but himself and sunlight.

She rode him, both of them half-dressed, and he held her for a few minutes before they had to work; she lay her forehead against his collarbone and looked at the shadows they cast, and she could've said _I love you_ or _be careful_ or a thousand things. She didn't say anything at all.

+

When Clara Griffin was twenty-six, she went into battle naked, because Declan never got around to his polymers and she needed the light to pass through her. She walked the Sanctuary, _her_ Sanctuary, and she was not afraid: not even when one of those monsters in black stood an inch away from her and _sniffed._

"You want to dance?" she asked, shuffling to one side so it wouldn't fix on her voice. "Come on, big boy, show me what you're made of. Just try and hit me. I'm not scared of--"

The last thing she saw was the shadow of its claws.


End file.
